Gun dealer Mel Bernstein takes down an AK-47 assault rifle from a sales rack in February at his shooting range and gun store, Dragonman's, east of Colorado Springs, Colo. / Brennan Linsley, AP

by Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

by Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - About 58% of federally licensed firearms dealers have not been inspected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the past five years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General.

The report finds that the federal agency that enforces gun laws is stretched too thin to keep up with the growing number of firearms dealers. The result: It often takes more than a year - sometimes more than three years - for the agency to revoke a dealer's license after finding serious violations.

The report found violations of record-keeping rules are up 276% since 2004, but the number of firearms licenses revoked is down 43%.

The inspector general's report is the most complete look at the nation's firearms-dealer-regulation system since 2004, and it comes amid a national debate over gun control after the shooting deaths of 26 people - including 20 children - at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last December.

"It's completely outrageous," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "The agency has an appalling lack of resources."

He said the gun industry and some lawmakers in Congress have argued that existing laws should be enforced as a first step. "They're saying we can't pass more gun laws until the ATF does more enforcement, and then won't give them money for more enforcement. They're in a Catch-22."

President Obama's proposed 2014 budget asks Congress for $173 million more to enforce gun-safety laws, in part by increasing the frequency of inspections.

The number of gun dealers has increased 16% since 2004, and the report found ATF improving in some areas. Although license revocations are down, the number of other enforcement actions, such as warning letters and suspensions, is almost four times higher.

But the agency says it doesn't have the manpower to meet its goal of inspect every dealer at least once every three to five years. Even if every field investigator in the Kansas City region worked full-time on gun dealer inspections - and didn't have to travel up to six hours to cover far-flung gun stores - the region still wouldn't meet its goal of 1,981 annual inspections every year just to keep up, the report said.

In a formal response, the ATF says shifting resources to routine inspections isn't an option. That's because the law requires the agency to make other issues a priority: inspecting explosives licensees, processing new gun-dealer applications within 60 days and focusing on high-risk gun dealers.

In 2011, 62% of inspections found no violations. Most of the violations the ATF did find were paperwork errors, such as failing to keep updated records, keep a copy of a purchaser's identification or sign and date the required forms. Unless inspectors find multiple violations that would require a reinspection, a 1986 federal law bans the agency from making more than one unannounced inspection every year.

The association representing firearms dealers says it generally supports more inspections. "The industry is very concerned about making sure that firearms can be traced, because it is a vital law enforcement tool. We don't have any problem at all with any reasonable requests," said Andy Molchan, director National Association of Federally Licensed Firearms Dealers.

"As to violations, that tends to be a tricky thing. There's a lot of trivia that can be violations," he said. For example, he said, a dealer in Texas was cited for using an incorrect state abbreviation. "Technically, it was a violation, but what does it mean?"

By reconciling dealer inventories with records, the inspections also reveal that thousands of guns are unaccounted for. Since 2004, ATF inspections have discovered 174,679 guns missing from gun dealer inventories and presumed lost or stolen.

Though there are sometimes innocent explanations for those missing firearms - paperwork on dealer-to-dealer transactions might be missing, for example - they're a problem for law enforcement.

"They are untraceable," said George Semonick, an ATF spokesman and former field inspector. "They'll be traced down to that dealer, but that's where the trace stops."